Dear Faithful Christians, could you answer this question?

Question

I have been traveling around the US (for various reasons.) and asked every Christian I meet how do they know for sure if God is speaking to them. Every time I ask, I punch holes with reason into what they cite as their means to talk with the Almighty. I have yet have found a satisfactory answer to this question. What is your answer?

The bible was inspired by God, but written by the hands of man. If you read the Bible, there are plenty of examples of human beings being easily corrupted by the devil himself. Scripture can be perverted by human beings and the devil for their own purposes. Not to mention the countless contradictions. You will have to try harder then that.

I ask for my own spiritual guidance and betterment. Not to question your faith like many have. I have noticed the more I question my faith, the stronger my faith becomes. However, I know the many common cited sources of people told me are and have be misused by Man for their Greed and own purposes. I need to know how to talk to him directly and know it is him for sure and not just a delusion. I do not wish to be lead astray.

Linda, your quote is poetic, but still evading the question.

God doesn,t speak with a voice,It,s more like a spiritual
feeling to me.
Elaine please be more descriptive. A feeling. Feelings are also the source of temptation. How do you know your feelings are not leading you astray. How do you know it is you obeying the Lord and not just some random bio-chemical reaction in your brain?

Fireman He is the Almighty! You're not!
I could care less what you poke holes in.
God doesn't need your permission or understanding to talk to His people.

You misunderstand my intentions. I wish to believe and follow the lord directly, to become a better person, not obey some doctrine created by man blindly without question. Untested faith is just as bad as being without faith.

Friendship band Three revelations !. The Bible 2. Jesus Christ [Messiah]
3. The Holy Spirit !!!

If you are a true skeptic or an athiest please visit the following site
The bible was written by man, has many errors occurred in its many translations and if written by man and man is fallible, then the bible is fallible. There are many alternative scriptures not of the canon that suggest that Jesus Christ may not have existed. Have you tried reading coptic scriptures? If not, go ahead and do so.Try harder.

How do I know the holy Spirit if it appears to me is not a delusion? I have met many people here on the streets of Las Vegas claiming they
hear the Holy Spirit. Usually right after they get out of the mental ward. Try better then that.

expertless you are avoiding the question.

got air Your response is a good one. It is the point I am trying to make.
There is no firm answer to your question. That is the reason Paul said we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But alas, our hope is in the promise made that He who has begun a good work in us is faithful to finish it.

It means we have to come to an understanding with god through our own terms. The bible can be interpreted so many ways that such interpretations have been used to satisfied the greed of men not the salvation of souls. Jim Jones and Waco are good examples.

He speaks thru is word ,is anointing which at all times you will have peace if its him ,he speaks with an audible voice,thru dreams ,visions,and he always confirms thru others what he tells you.Thats on a personal level,he will use others to prophesy and then confirm it.

Dreams, voices and visions and such can be summed up as delusions. Not to prick at you, however such things can be interpreted in many ways and could be the result of many other things. What may be a God sent to one, may be summed up as a coincidence by another.

How to be sure that God is speaking to you and not the demons or your own fleshly desires.

First, Are you being told to do what is right, but not what is fun, easy, or at least non threatening to your own ego? Here is the other question. What is right in today's world? How could I talk to God and find out? I often found out the morals I had in my youth often lead me to making decisions that were often not the smartest. What you do if you see a child stealing bread when it is hungry? What do you do about an unborn child that will be born into a family of poverty and suffering and despair?
These and many other questions arise and my cut and dry morality when I was younger did not answer these things, the morality offered by my preachers. What do God want us to do in such situations when things are not as cut and dry? This is why I am asking how I can know if I being guided directly by him.

Cindy it seems you are closer to what I am looking for. However, guidance is what I need. Some are right and I should read the bible more often. Yet how many actually studied the history behind the religion and the bible? If you did, you would begin to question many things, such I am now. I do need something more unquestionable if you get what I am saying.

Answer 1

There is no firm answer to your question. That is the reason Paul said we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But alas, our hope is in the promise made that He who has begun a good work in us is faithful to finish it.

edit: You and I seem to be walking the same path...best wishes

Answer 2

I don't know if this will satisfy you, but if one brakes it down to the skeptical basics, "How do we know anything?" some will answer, "I think therefore I am." But how do you know it's really you doing the thinking? Do you have free will? Is love real? Is there objectively good in the universe? Or bad? At some point, a person finds skepticism goes to the absurd. If a person can believe that she/he exists, that some things are objectively good and some others are objectively (or universally, or actually) bad, that they can believe that at least some of the time they feel love it's something beyond them, then that's the beginning of faith.
I don't believe that following certain rules, rituals, and reciting incantations will get me worldly results but I do believe that love exists objectively, beyond us in the universe. It's a short step from that faith to excepting that love is experiencing God.
I believe that skepticism should keep us from being gullible, but if we get to where we need to know these things "for sure" we can find life a little flat and somehow wrong and unsatisfying. I know of nothing worth pursuing in life that will stand to that kind of skepticism.

Answer 3

How to be sure that God is speaking to you and not the demons or your own fleshly desires.

First, Are you being told to do what is right, but not what is fun, easy, or at least non threatening to your own ego?

Doing the right thing will go against every fiber of your fleshly body and earthly desires.

When Jesus stated to take up our cross and follow him, he really was talking about taking up what controls our earthly bodies and fleshly desires and forsaking that life.

When God speaks to a human, he does it through his word and our reading of it. Gods word is living and he will use it to speak to us, much the same as he will use a preacher to get a message across to us that the preacher really didnt think he was preaching about on that particular day.

If you get nothing out of reading Gods word except the actual words on the paper, you are not yet an adopted child of God. Once you are, his word comes alive in our hearts and lives.
I cannot give you an accurate example of this, because this is one area that GOD does not entrust to us, he and he alone decides whom will be his. We only get to plant the seed and water it, only God can make it (you) grow.

Now, for a very personal moment when God spoke to me.

I was despondent, my prayers were for God to please take me home to him. I no longer wanted to stick around and endure the life that I was living here on this earth. I prayed for nothing else, not one other thing. I prayed this without ceasing and it consumed me.

One night, during this time, I felt something akin to an arm enclosing around me and it was so comforting. A voice inside my body, not just my head told me that everything would be ok.

I was comforted and no longer wracked with emotional pain. I fell asleep in those comforting "arms". When I awoke in the morning, nothing had changed physically in my world.
All was still the same emotional mess. I was different. I was calmer and had this inside knowledge that all would be ok. I had no idea how it would all be ok, just that it would.

Now, over three years later, I can see all that has taken place and while life is still no bed of roses, it is much calmer and getting better still.

This is not to say that my experience is the only way that God shows himself. God gives us what we need, when we need it, not always what we want, when we want it.

Edit+++++

I guess that what you are looking for will come to you in a manner in which it came to me. You will need to continue to pray to God to answer your questions. Stay aware of all around you, God answers our questions in so many different ways and the answer to your questions will come in a moment and in a way that you are not expecting. One thing I know for sure, God does not "speak" to us in one way or another and there is no way for one of us to tell another how they will be spoken to.
I wish you Godspeed in your studies and searching.

Answer 4

He speaks thru is word ,is anointing which at all times you will have peace if its him ,he speaks with an audible voice,thru dreams ,visions,and he always confirms thru others what he tells you.Thats on a personal level,he will use others to prophesy and then confirm it.

Answer 5

You can know that God is speaking to you if you have the baptism of the Holy Ghost. God sent his Holy Ghost as a help. This is how God speaks to you.

Answer 6

Three revelations !. The Bible 2. Jesus Christ [Messiah]
3. The Holy Spirit !!!

If you are a true skeptic or an athiest please visit the following site http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

Answer 7

You have already drawn your own conclusions and I see no point in casting my pearls before you.

I KNOW God exists and have heard His voice several times, personally. That is all I will say to you, an unbeliever.

God bless!

Answer 8

God speaks to our hearts, through other people, through the pastor in his sermon.

It's not an audible voice.
It's like Elaine30705 said, it's a spiritual feeling, a burden in your heart.

Answer 9

The Spirit of God bears witness with my spirit. (very hard to describe if the person you are talking too has not had that experience before) It's very hard to punch holes into someone's experience. How can you say, "this really didn't happen to you".

Answer 10

God speaks to us in many different ways you just have to believe in it i could understand its hard for you right know what you should do is pray i dont know if you believe in it or not but pray talk to him in your prayers he will answer you.